CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.

How to handle the psychic pain of learning that your music idol's own favorite song is "Stars Are Blind" by Paris Hilton:

1. Remember that Paris Hilton didn't write the lyrics or the music. She hired genuine talent to raise and buttress whatever exactly it was that she brought to the recording studio.

2. Remember that Paris Hilton hardly exists and therefore isn't especially fearsome. Perversely, she is famous for being famous — a persona without a presence. She's perhaps even less real for having starred in a television "reality series." She's as deep as a t-shirt slogan, as insubstantial as a tabloid headline plastered across a perfume bottle, an eternally spent bombshell with a leaked porn tape.

3. Your musical idol is entitled to his own (bad) taste. It's impossible to know what he's hearing when he listens to Paris Hilton. Every brain "decodes" musical signals differently, irresistibly overlaying idiosyncratic associations. Heck, given just the right mood and circumstances, listening to Bono's opinion on everything could — theoretically — be a pleasant experience.

4. Paris Hilton's "Stars are Blind" isn't an offense to human culture. It's a breezy, reggae-infused love song, neither more nor less than the genre demands. It's a passing cloud, not shapely enough for anyone to exclaim, "Very like a whale!", not large enough to offer shade, not charged enough to threaten lightning, not heavy enough to replenish the aquifers, not refractive enough to offer a rainbow. It neither helps nor harms but flimsily "is."

5. If all else fails, chant the Litany Against Paris Hilton:

Paris Hilton is the mind-killer.Paris Hilton is the little-death that brings total obliteration.I will face Paris Hilton.I will permit her to pass over me and through me.And when she has gone past I will turn my inner eye to see her path.Where Paris Hilton has gone there will be nothing.Only I will remain.